The Indians had commenced a trench at the water level of the river bank, mining upwards towards the station, and intending to reach the interior by a passage under the wall.  He took measures to render their project ineffectual, by ordering a trench to be cut inside the fort, across the line of their subterraneous passage.  They were probably apprised of the countermine that was digging within, by the quantity of earth thrown over the wall.  But, stimulated by the encouragement of their French engineer, they continued to advance their mine towards the wall, until, from the friability of the soil through which it passed, it fell in, and all their labor was lost.  With a perseverance that in a good cause would have done them honor, in no wise discouraged by this failure to intermit their exertions, they returned again to their fire arms, and kept up a furious and incessant firing for some days, but producing no more impression upon the station than before.

During the siege, which lasted eight days, they proposed frequent parleys, requesting the surrender of the place, and professing to treat the garrison with the utmost kindness.  They were answered, that they must deem the garrison to be still more brutally fools than themselves, to expect that they would place any confidence in the proposals of wretches who had already manifested such base and stupid treachery.  They were bidden to fire on, for that their waste of powder and lead gave the garrison little uneasiness, and were assured that they could not hope the surrender of the place, while there was a man left within it.  On the morning of the ninth day from the commencement of the siege, after having, as usual, wreaked their disappointed fury upon the cattle and swine, they decamped, and commenced a retreat.

No Indian expedition against the whites had been known to have had such a disastrous issue for them.  During the siege, their loss was estimated by the garrison at two hundred killed, beside a great number wounded.  The garrison, on the contrary, protected by the palisades, behind which they could fire in safety, and deliberately prostrate every foe that exposed himself near enough to become a mark, lost but two killed, and had six wounded.

After the siege, the people of the fort, to whom lead was a great object, began to collect the balls that the Indians had fired upon them.  They gathered in the logs of the fort, beside those that had fallen to the ground, a hundred and twenty-five pounds.  The failure of this desperate attempt, with such a powerful force, seems to have discouraged the Indians and their Canadian allies from making any further effort against Boonesborough.  In the autumn of this season, Colonel Boone returned to North Carolina to visit his wife and family.